Tech Talk | What is a Network Address?

In a nutshell, this is part of a series of posts I write where I try to consolidate some of what I’ve learnt over the past few weeks, in what are hopefully clear and concise blog posts.

In my last post, I wrote about protocols and what they mean in computer networking, and this week I’m going to be talking a bit about network addressing. Some definitions in here are explained in more detail in my previous posts, so if you want to catch up with the rest of the posts in the Computer Networking series, click here!

What is a Network Address?

A network address is any logical or physical address that uniquely characterises a network node over a computer or telecommunications network.

Let’s elaborate on that…

A network address works much in the same way that your home address does. It’s a sequence of numbers or letters unique to a network node, that allows other nodes on the network the ability to identify you.

In keeping with our analogy, it’s like how your home address allows people in your network of friends the ability to distinguish where you live so that they are able to visit you.

A Network Address works like your Home Address

Because every house on a street is assigned a number or name to distinguish itself from the houses around it, we are able to visit, send letters or parcels to friends and family.

Similarly, every node in a network will have a network address. This network address will be what other computers will use to identify, locate and address it. Anything that seeks access to or is part of a network will also have its own network address.

You might have already come across the term IP address; briefly put, it stands for ‘internet protocol address’ and is a unique address that identifies a device on the internet or a local network. This is essentially the address your computer is assigned whenever you are connected to the internet or local area network.

This has been a very brief overview explaining a bit about what a network address is, and I hope it’s been informative! There’s so much more to network addressing that it won’t all fit in this post, but hopefully the basics are there. If you have any questions, please do leave a comment below and I’ll answer as best as I can.

Likewise, if you find anything that needs correcting, or just want to add some more info, comment below!

If you want to check out the rest of the posts in my Tech Talk series, click here. Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!